A Donald Trump megadonor is asking the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to gut the media’s ability to assertively cover politicians.
Billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn, who has donated millions to Trump’s presidential campaigns, is petitioning the court to disavow The New York Times v. Sullivan, a key precedent protecting the press.
The landmark 1964 decision raised the standards to sue the press for libel when a false statement is published about a public figure.
The court ruled unanimously that a public figure has to show that the journalist either knew that the information was false or disregarded the possibility in order to win the defamation case. It isn’t enough just to prove that the information was wrong.
The new petition, filed Friday, stems from a lawsuit Wynn brought against the Associated Press in 2018 after the newswire reported on two allegations of sexual assault made against the billionaire in the 1970s.
Wynn, 76, claimed that the allegations were false and sued the AP for defamation. However, a Nevada district court dismissed the case, finding that the article was a good faith attempt to communicate an issue to the public.
Nevada’s Supreme Court upheld the ruling on appeal. His petition to the U.S. Supreme Court is an effort to overrule the lower courts‘ decisions and eliminate the need for his suit to demonstrate “actual malice” on the part of the Associated Press.
A month before the AP’s article published, The Wall Street Journal had separately reported a number of allegations of sexual misconduct against Wynn, including that he had made a $7.5 million settlement with a manicurist who accused him of forcing her to have sex with him.
As a result, in 2018, Wynn stepped down as the CEO of Wynn Resorts, his hotel and casino company, although he denied the allegations against him. He also resigned as the finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
Wynn’s petition to the nation’s highest court seeks to make it easier for public figures, including politicians like Trump, to seek retribution over unfavorable press coverage.
“Sullivan is not equipped to handle the world as it is today—media is no longer controlled by companies that employ legions of fact checkers before publishing an article,” the petition argues. “Instead, everyone in the world has the ability to publish any statement with a few keystrokes. And in this age of clickbait journalism, even those members of the legacy media have resorted to libelous headlines and false reports to generate views. This Court need not further this golden era of lies.”
The court, which currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, has yet to decide whether it will take on the case.
Forbes estimates Wynn’s net worth at $3.7 billion. Wynn Resorts, which Wynn founded in 2002, owns luxury resorts in Las Vegas, London, and China.
Wynn was the vice-president of Trump’s inauguration committee in 2017. He donated $1.5 million to Trump in 2020, and contributed $800,000 during the first quarter of 2024 alone for the Republican’s successful campaign, according to Forbes.
The first weeks of Trump’s second term have been marked by escalating attacks on the credibility of the press. On Thursday, the president amplified an unfounded theory that the government pays news media for positive coverage of Democrats.
On the campaign trail, he also repeatedly espoused support for imprisoning journalists who refuse to name their sources.
